The present invention relates to a printing apparatus having plural discharge portions to which printed output is discharged, a print control method and a printing system for the printing apparatus.
A printing apparatus having a plurality of discharge portions (bins), each of which can discharge and accumulate a plurality of printed sheets, is known. One of the methods to perform printing by this printing apparatus is called xe2x80x9cmail box printingxe2x80x9d. According to the xe2x80x9cmail box printingxe2x80x9d, in a case where plural users share one printing apparatus, the respective bins are reserved in advance for the respective user""s exclusive use. A user causes the printing apparatus to discharge a printed sheet to the bin which has been set in advance for the user""s exclusive use, such that the user can collect the printed sheets from the bin. In this printing apparatus, the respective bins have discharge portion names. Upon printing, a user specifies a bin having a discharge portion name to be used by, e.g., a print job, thereby the user causes the printing apparatus to discharge printed sheets to the specified bin.
In the conventional printing apparatuses of this type, however, even if the printing apparatus has plural bins as sheet discharge portions, the names allotted to the bins are fixed. Accordingly, in a case where a bin is specified in printing by a print job, if the bin is used by another user, the print job with designation of the bin cannot be immediately accepted by the printing apparatus even though the printing apparatus has another available bin. In this case, the user has to wait until the print job by the other user is completed.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above conventional art, and has its object to provide a printing apparatus, a print control method and a printing system, for being capable of dynamic management of discharge portions of printed mediums.
Further, another object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus, a print control method and a printing system, for specifying an unused discharge portion and discharge printed mediums if a discharge portion specified by a print job does not exist.
Further, another object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus, a print control method and a printing system, for discharging printed mediums, on which printing has been performed based on a print job based on an instruction of a user, to a predetermined discharge portion, and notify the user of the discharge portion.
According to the present invention, the foregoing objects are attained by providing a printing apparatus having a plurality of discharge portions to which a printed medium is discharged, the apparatus comprises: storage means for storing control information on the plurality of discharge portions; printing means for performing printing on a print medium in accordance with a print job; detection means for detecting whether a discharge portion designated by discharge destination specifying information included in the print job exist or not, on the basis of the control information stored in said storage means, wherein the discharge destination specifying information specifies a discharge portion to which a printed medium on which printing has been performed by said printing means is to be discharged; and control means for discharging the printed medium to the discharge portion detected by said detection means, while if said detection means has detected no discharge portion corresponding to the discharge destination specifying information, referring to the control information, specifying an unused discharge portion of the plurality of discharge portions, and discharging the printed medium to the specified discharge portion.
Further, the foregoing objects are attained by providing a printing system connecting an external device to a printing apparatus, wherein the printing apparatus comprises: a plurality of discharge portions to which a printed medium is discharged; storage means for storing control information on the plurality of discharge portions; printing means for performing printing on a print medium in accordance with a print job; detection means for detecting whether a discharge portion designated by discharge destination specifying information included in the print job exist or not, on the basis of the control information stored in said storage means, wherein the discharge destination specifying information specifies a discharge portion to which a printed medium on which printing has been performed by said printing means is to be discharged; control means for discharging a printed medium to a discharge portion detected by said detection means, while if said detection means has detected no discharge portion corresponding to the discharge destination specifying information, referring to the control information, specifying an unused discharge portion of the plurality of discharge portions, and discharging the printed medium to the specified discharge portion; and transmission means for transmitting specifying information to specify the discharge portion to which the printed medium has been discharged to the external device.
Further, the foregoing objects are attained by providing a print control method for controlling a printing apparatus having a plurality of discharge portions to discharge a printed medium, comprising the steps of: storing control information on the plurality of discharge portions in a memory; detecting whether a discharge portion designated by discharge destination specifying information included in the print job exist or not, on the basis of the control information stored in the memory, wherein the discharge destination specifying information specifies a discharge portion to which a printed medium on which printing has been performed is to be discharged; and discharging a printed medium to a discharge portion detected in said detecting step, while if no discharge portion corresponding to the discharge destination specifying information has been detected, referring to the control information, specifying an unused discharge portion of the plurality of discharge portions, and discharging the printed medium to the specified discharge portion.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters designate the same name or similar parts throughout the figures thereof.